Fan Fiction ❯ Orphaned in Life ❯ Chapter 2 ( Chapter 2 )

Chapter 2

 

 

That morning Shelly woke up, getting changed, and headed to the cafeteria. Last night at dinner she sat with James and his friends, but she didn't know if Dove would let her sit with them anymore after what she had done in the shower. Sitting alone she picks at the grey egg, maybe it came from a grey chicken, and the two pieces of toast. James and his friends come over and sit next to her, making Shelly uncomfortable. “Its ok Monkey Butt we aren't mad at you.” Shelly drops her toast and turns to James, then Dove, then lastly Jumbo.

 

“Robot told him not me; you said he already knew so there wasn't a problem talking to him.” Dove backs away from the table to make sure she was out of Shelly's range.

 

“Leave me alone, I don't want to talk to anyone.” Surprisingly the three laugh.

 

“Now she sounds like Darkie, don't be so down on it Shelly, not like we are gonna make fun of you, well Robot might but that's how he is.” Jumbo wasn't about to call Shelly Monkey Butt like James did; she seemed to be very sensitive about her tail.

 

“Look Monkey Butt…”

 

“Don't call me that!” Shelly, before she knows what she is doing tries to spear James in the hand with a fork. “Oh I'm so sorry James, we have to…” James laughs and pulls the fork out.

 

“That might have hurt, hmm, that isn't good.” His left hand had puncture holes in it. “This skin heals itself but that still sucks.” He didn't know that it could heal at first but after he tried to cut his wrist, stupidly on a cybernetic hand, and it healed itself. “I believe this is yours.” He hands the fork back to Shelly. “Ok, you obviously aren't ready for a nickname, sorry.”

 

“That didn't hurt? I mean, it moves like a real hand, and I guess it feels like your leg, real.”

 

“Nope, one of the benefits of a cybernetic limb.” He pulls his shirt sleeve over his hand so no one can see it. “Even better no scars when it heals, but until it does need to keep an adult from seeing it.”

 

“I'm still sorry, it was like when Dove saw it, I hate it.” Shelly pushes the plate away no hungry anymore. “What is there to do around here?”

 

“Well since you are old enough you don't have to deal with the school, the backyard sucks, we usually just chill in the Main Room, play cards, or watch TV.” The four stand up and leave the cafeteria.

 

A couple hours later a blonde girl, followed by three others, enters the Main Room and changes the channel of the TV to a talk show. “Hey we were watching that!” Shelly gets up to change the channel back when James grabs her arm.

 

“Don't, that's the Queen.” The blonde girl turns around and sees James holding Shelly back.

 

“What freak? Got a new pet do you? Haven't had a chance to talk to the new girl.” The Queen looks shelly up and down. “You don't look like a freak, with those looks you could even be friends with me, those losers will just hold you back.” The three girls behind The Queen laugh. “I'm Jill; these are Jesse, Jessica, and Jasmine.”

 

“Leave her alone, she won't join your kind Queen.” Dove gets out of a chair.

 

“Oh really bird brain? Why would she stay with your kind?” Jill looks back at Shelly. “She doesn't look like a freak, hmph, if you want me and my friends can take you to our secret place, away from these animals and the machine.”

 

“Leave her alone, and don't call my friends animals or I'll call you a…”

 

“Loser you just mad she won't look at you.” One of Jill's followers, Shelly wasn't sure, had stopped James.

 

“Like I'd want her to? I'm still human enough to get whatever diseases she has, what are you up to by the way, three or four STDs?” Dove and Jumbo laugh, Shelly stays quiet, uncomfortable with the situation.

 

“Oh you just know you jealous!” Another follower talks, moving her hand like someone from a bad teen movie.

 

“Shut up!” Everyone turns to Shelly. “I am not a piece of meat for you to fight over, I just got here, give me time to…”

 

“That's right you did, why you didn't know about the rules, those animals and machine are here.” Jill put her hand at about knee level. “While us humans are here.” She puts her hand at her forehead. “Since you are a human and not an animal…” She doesn't get another word out as Shelly punches her in the jaw.

 

“Shut up! They aren't animals; I'm not an animal, shut up!” Before she can hit Jill again all three of her followers jump Shelly. Dove and James jump in, Jumbo staying back so he doesn't hurt anyone. After a few seconds of fighting the yelling draws the attention of an adult.

 

“What is going on here!” It was a secretary for the Orphanage Leader.

 

“The freaks started it!” Jill gets away from the others. “The new kid punched me for no reason! The freaks did something to her.” The secretary isn't sure if that was true, she knows the new kid was there because she got in a fight, but Jill was calling them freaks, not helping her case.

 

“Come with me, all of you.”

 

“But Jumbo didn't do anything.” Dove was wiping blood from her mouth.

 

“He didn't do anything to stop it; all of you follow me to the office.” The kids follow the secretary, heads hung low, to the office. The secretary knocks on the door before sending the kids in. “These kids were fighting in the Main Room, I'm not sure what happened…”

 

“I told you the freaks started it! They corrupted the new girl and she hit me, I was trying to be nice and make friends with her and she punched me!”

 

“I don't care, I know you and your friends are mean to the other students Jill, and Shelly has a history of violence, I'm surprised by you Mike.”

 

“They say he didn't do anything, but he was there and didn't do anything to stop it.”

 

“Well, the rest of you are to go to the detention room right now, you will stay there till dinner, and I'll give you the rest of your punishments later. Mary if you could take them there, make sure they get there.” Mary leads the kids, minus Jumbo, to the detention room.

 

“Well this all your fault freaks, it's not to late Shelly, I'll let the first mistake slide as ignorance.”

 

“Ignorance? Who's the person who thought July 4th was Christmas in July?” Dove and James laugh.

 

“Shut up! Why do they have Christmas in July without giving it an exact date!” Jill and her friends go to one side of the room, sitting down to talk amongst each other.

 

“Well what do we do?” Shelly looked around the room, there were chairs and desks, and book cases filled with books. “We allowed to read those?”

 

“Of course, I pretty much read all of them though.” James laughs.

 

“”Been here before?” Shelly tries to make a joke getting up and getting a book.

 

“”Yep, but I never saw the Queen and her followers here, wonder what they can talk about for the next six hours.”

 

“Time to catch up on my sleep.” Dove goes and lies down on the floor, falling asleep quite easily. This was nothing compared to how she use to be, when she was on the street and slept anywhere she could.

 

“Well, it's been awhile since I read The Odyssey.” James gets a book and sits next to Shelly. “You ever read this?” She nods her head. “Cool.” They sit there, reading, while Dove sleeps, and the Queen with her followers talk to each other until dinner.

 

The next day they learn the rest of their punishments. “Since it is unclear who started the fight you will both serve three more detentions, and you will apologize to each other.” Jill and her friends stare at the group of `freaks' and say nothing.

 

“I'm sorry.”

 

“I am to; it was a stupid thing to do.”

 

“I guess I'm sorry to, even if we didn't start it we shouldn't have fought back.” Dove, Shelly, and lastly James apologize. They don't mean it, and James tries to make the Queen and her friends look even worse by implying they started it.

 

“Shut up freaks!” The Orphanage Leader reconsiders things, the other group, the smaller group, the ones who did seem to be attacked, had apologized.

 

“Hmm, I think your punishments need to be revised, James, Shelly, and Cindy, you are to serve one more detention, in a separate room from the other four.” Shelly, James, and Dove are confused at first, Cindy? Then it dawns on them, that was Dove's real name, it had been so long since she used it, heard it

 

“That's not fair! Why do the freaks get special treatment!” Jill and her friends are not use to this, they were the special ones, they were the normal ones, they were better then these freaks!

 

“James, Cindy, Shelly, do you know where the Cloister is?” James and Cindy/Dove nod, Shelly doesn't but she figures she will follow the other two. “Go there until five, if you behave your punishment will be over. You four will go to the detention room until dinner, and again tomorrow, after lunch until dinner, and again on Thursday.”

 

“That's not fair! The freaks and their pet started it! Jessica, Jasmine, Jesse, we will not stand for this!” The four girls get out of their chairs. “You will pay for this freaks! One of you is still out there, you will suffer.”

 

“That's it! Detention for all four of you for two weeks! You leave them alone, you clearly started this and they have apologized, if anything happens to them I will know who did it and you will be severely punished!” The Orphanage Leader couldn't believe these four, who did they think they were?

 

“This is the cloister?” It was a large room, large windows, with lots of benches.

 

“Yeah Shelly, think this use to be part of a church or something.” James is lying back on a bench, his feet propped up on the one in front of him. “Can't believe that worked, The Queen and her peasants were so easily played.

 

“She called me Cindy; I swear I had no idea who she was talking to.” Dove laughs, she was so use to going by Dove she had completely forgotten the name given to her by the state.

 

“I know, I didn't know she meant you either Dove, maybe should correct her on that.” James laughs with Dove, he had given her the nickname `Dove' and now she took it as her name.

 

“So we just sit her for three more hours huh? I don't know, I'm new here, how did you guys get here?”

 

“I was captured, I ran away from the freak show my parents sold me to, and then after running for nearly a year the authorities caught me. They couldn't take me back to Dr. Strange since what he had done was illegal, so they stuck me in the system.” Dove had so many names in her life, Amazing Bird Girl, Jane Doe, Cindy Doe, and now Dove. “Now I am here until I turn 18 or get moved to another home.”

 

“Oh, like how I got here?” Shelly looks down at the floor, how sad, at least her parents didn't get an idea like that. “What about Jumbo?”

 

“He was in the system before he could walk, his parents didn't want to deal with the medical bills. His disease is horrible…” Dove stops, she knows how it will end for her friend.

 

“How? He looks normal, just big for his age.” Shelly didn't know what it was that made it so horrible.

 

“Its terminal, the older he gets the bigger he gets until his heart gives out, until he does.” From what they knew Jumbo wouldn't live to see 40, the oldest anyone with his disease lived to was 39, at 9'3, 730 pounds.

 

“Oh, wow, that sucks.” Shelly never knew anyone that died, or would die. “What about you James?”

 

“Let's just say the day my father killed my mother was the best day of my life.” James couldn't think of anything funny to say, thinking about his friend Jumbo, it saddened him knowing there was nothing he could do to make him better.

 

“Really? That's so morbid; I shouldn't have said that, I don't know what happened.”

 

“It is though isn't it? But it saved me from any more experiments.”

 

“Experiments?” Shelly stops, she was being nosy. “I'm sorry; you don't have to tell me, I'm just curious.”

 

“It's alright, my dad, he was a genius, evil, insane, but a genius. He wanted to cure disease, he was a doctor and he saw patients die all the time and wanted to stop that. He thought that if people died from viruses and germs it was because they were organic, so if he made them like a machine, they wouldn't get sick.” James pops his left hand off. “Yesterday you stabbed me in the hand, but look, no puncture marks, and no infection.”

 

“You're right, it's like I never did it.” She gives it back to James who reattaches it.

 

“Now imagine if your heart was like that, you wouldn't get heart disease, or have heart attacks. Or if say your kidney…” James lifts his shirt and shows three large nasty scars. “Was replaced with a cybernetic one you wouldn't get kidney problems. Same with the liver, and my dad made it so I can process food and chemicals quickly. My dad wanted to see, after the operation, if he could get me drunk. I can't, he poured gallons of alcohol down my throat but I processed it so fast I never got drunk.”

 

“What about your mom? She was still around right?” Shelly couldn't help herself, she reached out and touched the scars.

 

“She was, but she was another piece of meat for him to experiment on. If something worked on me he did it to her. My leg and hand worked, so he replaced all of my mom's arms and legs, completely. Since my kidney and liver worked he replaced hers, but when he didn't make my spleen work he didn't replace hers.”

 

“That's horrible.” Shelly takes her hand away from James. “I'm sorry, I didn't think…”

 

“Hey no big deal, maybe you could let me touch your tail since I let you touch my scars.” James laughs, he had gotten over his scars years ago, even if he wouldn't go around shirtless at a pool. “But then my dad screwed up, he considered a brain to be nothing more then a computer, and like a computer should be able to download information to it. When he was working on her she died, he tried to get rid of her and the police caught him. That was the day they came and found me, got me out of the cage, the best day of my life.”

 

“So, what's all, you know, not real?” Shelly couldn't believe herself, how could she be so thoughtless?

“Besides my hand and leg? One kidney, my liver, my heart, parts of my nose, and my right ear are all fake. My heart beats at a steady 70bpm no matter what, I can turn my nose on and off, really cool when something smells really bad and I don't want to smell it, and my right ear can do that to. I can also use it to spy on people, if I really try I can make the hearing become greater then normal humans, really cool trick if people are whispering or lying.” James laughs, he loved doing that to people, he could hear their heart beat faster when they were lying, and some people accused him of being psychic.

 

“Wow, and your mom had even more?”

 

“Yep, she was going to be my dad's master piece, all limbs, both ears, her nose, her eyes, even her tongue were mechanical. My dad still couldn't make a digestive system or circulatory system work but he was working on it. If his attempts to make a brain into a computer hadn't side tracked him I might have fake lungs or something, no lung cancer or asthma or emphazyma to worry about.” James smiles, how he could Shelly didn't know, but James had long gotten over the hell he endured, his father was crazy, but there was a method to his madness, and James knew his father was trying to do good just did it in a evil way.

 

“Wow, so he's in jail?”

 

“Nope, he got himself killed; they gave him the chair, or needle, whatever they use in this state to kill people. They said he tortured my mother before she died, and the child abuse charges and he ran from the police, several other crimes against humanity, it was too much for the jury to let go.” He wasn't allowed to go to the execution, he would have if they allowed it, to see his father die the way he did in his dreams would probably have ended them.

 

“So you don't get sick anymore?” It was amazing, James was like 20% machine, his mom had been even more, James's father had been a genius but evil.

 

“Not yet anyways, I might though, still have one real kidney.” James pats his other side.

 

“You're the luckiest one here; your parents just left you, from what I heard.” Dove had been dozing off, she already knew about James so hadn't been paying attention. “You would have made a good freak, the Amazing Monkey Girl! Heck, Dr. Strange would have loved you, to pit the Monkey Girl and Bird girl against each other, people would have paid top dollar for that.”

 

“I'm Not A Monkey!” All Shelly had heard was Monkey Girl before her rage and anger took over.

 

“It was a joke sorry Shelly, sorry.” Dove backed away from Shelly making sure she was out of her punching range.

 

“I'm the one who's sorry Dove, I, I don't know why but I can't control myself when it comes to my tail.” Shelly sheepishly lowers her head, if they were going to bear their souls and past, there was something they had to see. She had kept them down for so long, she didn't know if they would come back up after all these years.

 

“What are you doing, are you ok?” James gets off the bench and reaches out towards Shelly to see what was wrong. Shelly reaches up, she feels them, and moves her hair out of the way. “You got ears? Other ears?” Two ears, like a cat or dog, were sticking out of her head.

 

“Yeah, I usually keep them down so no one can see them but if we are, you know, going to be friends I thought I should show them. Like when you showed me your leg and hand after you saw my tail.” The ears move around, like a cat, listening to things her normal ears couldn't hear. “See I'm not a, uh, Monkey, I'm a, uh, kitty, meow.” Dove and James burst into laughter, Shelly had a hard time doing it but she made a joke about herself.

 

“That was pretty good, wow, meow?” James was glad to see the new kid making a joke, she so far had been dark, angry, and closed in.

 

“You'll never hear me say that again, or see these again.” Shelly closes her eyes and folds them down to her head, using her hands to move her hair and cover them up. “That was funny though wasn't it?” Shelly laughs with the others.

 

They continue to talk for another two hours, not worried that this was supposed to be punishment, this was fun, Shelly had opened up to the other two, they befriended her, this was nothing like her last home, or the one before that, here she would have friends.